By Grant Golden
January 11, 2024
There’s an inextricable connection between professional wrestling and the South. From generation to generation, week in and week out, kids and adults alike have gathered around the television to suspend their disbelief and soak up hours of “sports entertainment.” Some of those kids end up growing out of it, some remain lifelong fans, but few take the time and dedication required to break into the professional wrestling industry.
North Carolina natives Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler, better known as FTR, have been collecting tag team championships and annual awards for over a decade now, amassing titles in WWE, AEW, New Japan Wrestling, and AAA. In 2023, the duo received Tag Team of the Year honors from ESPN, Pro Wrestling Illustrated, and the New York Post.
“Sometimes they just all run together. We get so many of them,” Harwood joked as we discussed their career. And he’s not wrong. FTR has been heralded as one of wrestling’s best tag teams since their WWE debut– by fans, critics, and wrestlers. But it’s been a long road.
“I’m from a very small town outside of Asheville called Old Fort, population 800,” Wheeler said. “It was kind of a family tradition to be a wrestling fan. Everybody, at least at some point, was a casual wrestling fan in my family. My aunts loved it, my uncle loved it…even my grandma was a huge fan of it. Wrestling was just always something that was around.”
It’s a story that rings true for many Southerners. From the ‘70s and ‘80s showcasing the age-old feud of stylish Ric Flair and the humble every-man Dusty Rhodes, to the mid-90s Attitude Era of anti-authoritarian icons like Stone Cold Steve Austin or NWO, each generation found a deep connection with the storytelling and characters within the world of wrestling.
Harwood mused that he “can’t remember a time when [he] wasn’t watching wrestling.” He vividly recalled a night viewing NWA with his father at five years old, as the famed announcer Gordon Solie was interviewing Ric Flair. And as he grew, his dedication to wrestling grew, too.
“Even in my [high school] yearbook I said, ‘Five years from now I’m gonna be a professional wrestler’…it’s just always been my passion.”
While Wheeler took the route of backyard wrestling out in western Carolina, Harwood began his journey training in Jacksonville with Robert Kellum (The Maestro in WCW), eventually flourishing under the tutelage of the iconic George South (NWA, WWF, WCW). Even though the two were simultaneously grinding at opposite ends of the state, they began to hear rumblings of each other through the independent wrestling scene.
“The talent [in North Carolina] was few and far between,” Harwood said. “It wasn’t as rich as it is right now, so all of the good talent knew about each other, and I always wanted to wrestle him.”
In May of 2012, the two finally got that opportunity. Harwood and Wheeler were called in for a WWE tryout and were given no direction. They couldn’t plan any moves, couldn’t choreograph any of their spots– they were just placed into the ring and were told to go. And that’s exactly what they did.
“We wrestled for anywhere between 15 and 20 minutes,” Harwood said, “and that’s when we decided we wanted to be a tag team. We said, ‘no selfish ambition, we wanna make this team work.’ And the rest is history.”
That history couldn’t be more literal. As “The Revival” in WWE, the duo became the first WWE Tag Team Triple Crown winners, holding the Raw Tag Title twice, the NXT Tag Title twice, and the SmackDown Tag Titles. After departing from WWE, Harwood and Wheeler made their debut in AEW in 2020, a move that allowed them to grow internationally, taking matches in companies in Japan, Mexico, and the UK.
When talking to FTR about the trajectory of their career in the past few years, the word “surreal” continues to pop up. They’ve collaborated with athletes they revered as adolescents, working in the very rooms they watched on television so many years ago. From wrestling Sting in a tag team match in the legendary Greensboro Coliseum, to working alongside Tully Blanchard of The Four Horseman in a stable of their own, FTR’s list of accomplishments continues to grow with each outing.
“It’s crazy to me,” Wheeler said. “These guys made it possible for us, they’re literally all-time greats and we get to work with them side by side. If you’d have told me at 10 years old that would be my future…I’d have never believed you.”
Humble beginnings doesn’t quite describe the start this duo had. Harwood and Wheeler recall wrestling in gas station parking lots as attendees filled up their car and in warehouses powered by extension cords from neighboring buildings. It’s hard not to root for the occasionally arrogant cohorts. They’re two guys with a genuine love for wrestling who have formed a deep connection with fans through their body of work.
When looking at the history of tag team wrestling, it’s indisputable that FTR is deserving of a spot alongside all-time greats. Whether you’re comparing them to The Fabulous Freedbirds and The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express, or modern acts like The Hardy Boyz and Edge & Christian, FTR’s accomplishments put them in a rare class. Many teams have risen to greatness in the states or in their home countries, but few are able to captivate the fans around the world. When considering the scope of these global accolades, it’s hard not to place FTR in the pantheon of tag team greatness.
Follow Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler and catch AEW’s return to North Carolina on March 3 at Greensboro Coliseum for Sting’s retirement match.
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